The Footpath Difficttlty. 171 



of stopping a suspicious character at once. If he 

 breaks through a hedge it is different ; but the law is 

 justly jealous of the subject's liberty on a public foot- 

 path, and you cannot turn him back. 



Neither is it of any use to search a man whose 

 tools, to a moral certainty, are concealed in some 

 hedge. With his hands in his pockets, and a short 

 pipe in his mouth, he can saunter along the side of a 

 preserve if only a path, as is often the case, follows the 

 edge ; and by-and-by it grows dusk, and the keeper 

 or keepers cannot be everywhere at once. There 

 is nothing to prevent such fellows as these from 

 sneaking over an estate with a lurcher dog at their 

 heels — a kind of dog gifted with great sagacity, nearly 

 as swift as a greyhound, and much better adapted for 

 picking up the game when overtaken, which is the 

 greyhound's difficulty. They can be taught to obey 

 the faintest sign or sound from their owners. If the 

 latter imagine watchers to be about, the lurcher 

 slinks along close behind, keeping strictly to the 

 path. Presently, if the poacher but lifts his finger,, 

 away dashes the dog, and will miss nothing he comes 

 across. The lurcher has always borne an evil repute, 

 which of course is the due not of the dog but of his 

 master. If a man had to get his living by the chase 

 in Red Indian fashion, probably this would be the 



